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sila: whoa!! that sure looks like fun! well done on participating and great job learning! hopefully you can…Hisham: Sure thing, Luke! Hope to see the birthday wish too if it’s possible.Luke: Hi, I would like to use one of ur photo to design a birthday wish for Sitiawan. I would put a credit …Hisham: Let’s just say “Canto Bight” was originally the name of some Tapani Sector noble’s pet duck.Edward: Or the city was named after the planet. Or they were both named after some forgotten dignitary. Weird…sila: glad that opah felt better though. hope she continues to feel healthy.sila: yay to a successful surgery! i hope you are recovering nicely. i’m imagining weird things with the s…Hisham: Thanks, chief. And yes I think your name is the longest we’ve ever had on here. Haha.

About

Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.

In the past two month or so I was commissioned by Edward MacGregor to create several batches of paperminis for his Enigma Corps campaign. Enigma Corps is an uchronic dieselpunk campaign setting set in the early 20th century.

The characters I have drawn for the paper miniatures here are from the Srivijaya Empire in South East Asia.

The setting also lacks any South East Asian colonialism during the turn of the 20th century.

I have uploaded two batches of the paper miniatures at Patreon. Each batch has at least 4 designs and a total of 12 paperminis.

The last day of Ramadhan, Irfan taught cousin Aiman to play RPG, specifically BareBones Fantasy (BBF). With the Eid Tabletop RPG Travel Pack I brought, I gamemastered an impromptu session for the cousins in the morning. Irfan tweaked his old player character (PC) Jake Hastur to be the Halfling wizard Drego Andre. Aiman adapted a pre-generated character from the BBF rule book to be an Elven wizard who called himself Johnson Jones.

Session 01: The Cave in the Clave

The Crossing

The two free Wizards Drego and Johnson were travelling the thick woods on foot in the Emondran Clave of the Keranak Kingdoms. (Presumably Johnson is an Emon Elf.)

It was getting dark but there was no place for them to hole up and camp. There were large trees and thick brush everywhere. They came across a river which flowed dangerously fast. If you fell in the water, you would be swept away in its swirling current. On the far bank was the perfect campsite: a sandy riverbank overgrown with delicious edible mushrooms.

Drego volunteered to look for a bridge but (because of his failed Scout skill roll) he was unable to find any way to cross it.

Johnson, who was able to cast a telekinesis spell, silently levitated Drego and floated him over the river toward the far bank. Then, Johnson managed with some difficulty to levitate himself to join Drego on the other side.Drego said, "Well, I guess we should have done that in the first place."

The Company of Wolves

Night fell. The stars were out and Drego, a very good cook, had picked some mushroom in order to make dinner. Johnson was more than satisfied with the food as he loved having dinner with friends. Then they heard the grown of an animal. They both leapt to their feet. Drego cast a minor fireball (Offensive Strike) spell to light the forest which abruptly halted the growling. Johnson warned him that he spotted four wolves in the bushes about to attack them.

The wolves show themselves and prepared to pounce on the Wizards. Johnson's crossbow bolt struck one of the two wolves eyeing him (removing only 3 Body Points from 15). The other two wolves leapt at Drego. One of them succeeded in biting the Halfling's arm (removing 8 BP from his 20). The bleeding Drego cast a blast of magical fire than swept through both wolves. Both canines were seared by the flames but were still trying to attack (the Offensive Strike spell dealt a 12 point damage).

One of the wolves jumped at Johnson and missed. It fell onto the sand by the river and prepared to attack again, but Johnson used his magic to push the wolf into the river. There was a splash, a yelp and it disappeared into the darkness. Meanwhile, the other wolves - the ones injured by fire - had failed to bite Drego again allowing Drego to cast another burst of flames that killed only one. (The survivor only had 1 BP left and was on fire.)

Johnson pushed the second wolf attacking him into the water using his mind, then helped Drego by doing the same. They thought they heard the final wolf yelp in relief (because the water doused its flames) then immediately yelp in distress (because of the raging river).

The entire roster of people at Tok Bah & Tok Ma's house during Hari Raya in a single photo!

Two days before Eid, we drove to Pasir Mas. We had planned on departing at 2 a.m. but we all overslept. So, we left and headed east after Subuh prayers.

A notable feature of this journey is that Ain drove for more than 80% of the way. She took the wheel from Changlun.

She drove from Changlun along the North-South Expressway, got out at the Gurun exit, drove past Jeniang, Kuala Ketil, Baling, Gerik and went up the East-West Highway over the mountains.

She became sleepy near the Titiwangsa rest stop, so we parked the car for a while.

Irfan massaged his mother's back, which was knotted up no doubt caused by the extra long driving. Then I took the wheel while Ain slept in the back.

The only place where a traffic jam occurred was near Bukit Bunga in Jeli, caused by Friday prayers traffic. I drove on towards the next town Nibong to stop for prayers. Then Ain retook the wheel and drove on. We stopped at Masjid Beijing at Rantau Panjang for Ain's Zohor prayers. Click on the photo above for a larger view.

Ain drove all the way to Pondok Lubuk Tapah. Aiman, Zara and family arrived shortly after. The cousins were soon reunited for an extended mirthful playtime.

I took photos.

Also, Irfan had a lightsaber light up behind him.

Two years ago ago, I did a unit logo patch for Seamus Conneely's Star Wars RPG campaign. Seamus recently contacted me again to commission a logo for his website Cannibal Halfling Gaming. The site features reviews, essays and adventure logs of many tabletop roleplaying games.

Meanwhile all through this month and the last, I have been slowly working my way through DwD Studios' artwork for their upcoming FrontierSpace RPG. As per the last update, here is a selection of scenes created for the chapter headers.

Chapter 6: Technology

Chapter 8: Robots

Chapter 9: Vehicles

During our excursion back to Sitiawan the previous week, Opah gave us her oven for us to use as she has not used it for years. This was a godsent for us as Ain had always wanted an over and we could not afford one.

So this was one of the first experiments Ain performed: baked mac and cheese.

It was tasty and glorious and Irfan & I have been asking for more. Will we get more? Stay tuned to find out.

I drew the artwork above while in Sitiawan.

It was the start of the second week of Ramadhan when we all drove to Perak for a long weekend to buka puasa with Irfan's grandparents. Also, there was some business to be had in Ipoh with Wan Cu and family facilitating said business.

It has been a while since we drove to their house in Ipoh from Sitiawan. I nearly got lost because the phone could not acquire the GPS signal long enough to tell us which direction we should take. But because of the ordeal we underwent, I think I will be able to remember it from now on.

We left for home from Ipoh, heading north and parting ways with Atok and Opan at Wan Cu's place.